Wild Jasmine (22 page)

“Bold baggage,” the eunuch sniffed. “What makes you so wise in the ways of men?” Then he threw up his hands and sighed dramatically. “No! I do not want to know how you obtained your wisdom. It is better I think of you and your sister as sweet, biddable girls.”

“We are indeed sweet, but perhaps not as biddable as you would have us, dear Adali,” Rohana told him. “Still, together we all serve our mistress well, do we not?”

He chuckled once again. “Aye, we do serve her well. We have not failed Candra in that.”

“Do you think she ever thinks of us, Adali?” Toramalli asked.

“I wonder what she is like today,” Rohana replied. “Do you think she is still as beautiful as she was those many years ago? Do you think she found happiness again with her other lord? Does she think of our little mistress?”

“Questions! Questions!” the eunuch fussed at them, although if the truth were known, he had had the same thoughts of Candra. He recalled his last glimpse of her; pale, wan, half drugged; but with what part of her awareness remained, her
concern was only for the infant daughter she had been forced to leave behind. Yes. He had thought of her many times. “These are questions we cannot possibly know the answers to,” he grumbled at them as reality returned, “and while we stand idly chattering, our work awaits us.”

Yasaman sat demurely in a small boat just off her own palace across the lake.

“It is really quite simple,” Jamal Khan was explaining to his bride, thinking how sweet she looked in pale green trousers and matching bodice. He stood within the small vessel, balancing himself carefully, a bamboo fishing pole in his hands. “Just bait the hook like this and then you are ready.” Demonstrating, he neatly dropped the fishing line into the water.

She sat, eyes wide, and asked, “Like this?” as she quickly baited her own hook and, with a quick flick of her wrist, sent her line into the lake.

Surprised, he asked, “Is it possible that you have done this before, Princess?”

“Perhaps,” she teased coyly, struggling to keep the laughter out of her voice.

“Either you have or you haven’t,” he said, and the fact of how little he knew his wife was suddenly brought home to him.

“Ohhh!” Yasaman replied in answer, jumping to her feet. “I think I have a bite, my lord!”

“Stand still!” he ordered her sharply. Their boat was rocking quite dangerously.

“Ohhhhh!” she wailed again, eyes twinkling, her amusement bubbling over into gales of laughter as she moved backward and forward.

He realized too late that she was doing it deliberately. Jamal Khan lost his precarious footing, but as he tumbled into the water he shouted at her, “
Vixen!
” The water closed over him for a brief moment before he struggled to the surface. He splashed about, glowering fiercely toward the boat. To his shock, he realized that she was no longer in the little vessel. His heart began to pound furiously. What could have possibly happened to her? “
Yasaman!
” he cried frantically. “
Yasaman!
”

“You called, my lord?”

He turned about in the water to discover her bobbing quite calmly next to him. “
You can swim!
” His tone had an accusatory ring to it.

She laughed. “Of course I can swim. How could I grow up
on this lake and not learn to swim? You swim. Did you have no sisters? Girls can swim as well as boys, my lord.”

“And you fish too,” he said, “don’t you?”

Yasaman laughed again. “Of course, but you were so sweet to teach me that I could not resist teasing you just a bit. So now, my lord, you know three things about me. I swim, I fish, and I have a wicked sense of humor like my father. I had best warn you that I hunt and ride as well. I am quite proficient with bow, spear, and musket, it is said.”

“There is something else I know about you,” he told her as he treaded water next to her. His brown eyes twinkled mischievously.

“What is it?”

“You have an extravagantly beautiful body, Yasaman,” and he laughed as she blushed.

“Villain!” she cried and, reaching out, yanked his dark hair before she dunked him beneath the waters of the lake.

“I was right!” he declared after he came up sputtering and laughing. It had never occurred to him that a wife could be fun. “You are a vixen!”

“Something else you have learned about me today!” she mocked him, swimming away from him toward the marble steps that led down from the boat quay of her palace.

Chuckling, Jamal Khan gathered up his fishing pole, which was floating nearby. Putting it into the bottom of the boat, he pulled himself in behind it and paddled back to the shore.

Yasaman, having hauled herself from the water, was now wringing out her long black hair. Her sheer green trousers and her green and gold silk choli, a short-sleeved bodice, left little to the imagination when wet. Looking down at him, she once more felt her cheeks grow warm at the admiring look he gave her. He was wearing only a dhoti. She thought his muscled legs and smooth chest quite impressive. He tied their boat fast and climbed the steps to join her.

“It is fortunate we did not have to fish for our supper, my princess,” he said mischievously.

Yasaman nodded. “I prefer curry anyway. I will ask Mama Begum to have the cook prepare lamb curry for supper.”

“Where will we sleep afterward? There is nothing left in your chambers, Yasaman. It has all been taken across the lake to our palace.”

“There are guest chambers, my lord.”

“We will need only one,” he replied. “As you did not want
my zenana women to know of our little arrangement, I would prefer your servants not know. Servants gossip. It would quickly be all over Kashmir that Jamal Khan’s bride was still a virgin. It is a state I do not think I will allow you to long retain. We are, I see, becoming fast friends.”

“Why should anyone care if we are intimate or not, my lord? Is it not our business and no one else’s?” His words disturbed her, but she instinctively knew he would keep his promise to her.

“That is true, Yasaman, it is our business alone, but it would still not prevent gossip. There would be those who thought me foolish to allow a maiden’s fears to overrule my own desires. They would assume that I was weak and could be manipulated. If I am to govern Kashmir in your father’s name, I must appear strong, even if my secret heart is soft. For the love and respect I feel for my own father, for the respect your father deserves of me, I will govern this province well.”

Yasaman Kama Begum looked into her bridegroom’s eyes with new regard. Loyalty to family and duty were things she well understood. She hardly knew this man, and yet she knew him quite well by his words. “I believe,” she said thoughtfully, “that I can love you one day, my lord Jamal.”

He smiled down at her; a smile of great sweetness, and then he gently caressed her face. “I believe I will learn to love you as well, my princess. A woman who can fish is indeed a pearl beyond price.”

Yasaman burst out laughing. “You have a sense of humor too,” she said. “You are the perfect man, my lord. Loyalty, duty, and humor! I can ask for no more.”

“But there is more, Yasaman,” he told her seriously. “There is my heart, and I offer it to you gladly.”

“I cannot refuse so gracious a gift, Jamal,” she returned softly, her heart beating a little faster. He was really the most romantic man she had ever met. When she had dreamed of a lover that short while ago, Jamal, faceless then, had been exactly what she had longed for. She could not wait to share her happiness with her brother, Salim. She would write him tomorrow. Salim, who loved his favorite wives deeply, would surely understand and be happy for her.

Watching them from a window in the palace, now hand in hand, Rugaiya Begum said a small prayer of thanks to Allah. Her instincts had been right in this matter. The handsome young Kashmiri prince was the perfect husband for her daughter,
especially as neither of them had ever been in love before. Rugaiya Begum knew that her child was still untouched, for Yasaman had shared that knowledge with her, but even if she hadn’t, Rohana and Toramalli had also told her. They had whisked the sheets from the prince’s bed themselves this morning that they might protect their mistress’s privacy. Without pressure the two young people would eventually fall in love and nature would take its sweet course. The older woman smiled, contented.

Several days later, Yasaman and her husband, assured by Adali that the prince’s palace was now habitable, returned across the lake. Adali had told his mistress of his discovery that the zenana rooms were actually a part of her apartments. In Jamal Khan’s mother’s day there had been no zenana, he had concluded. All its rooms, including the lovely little marble bath, had certainly belonged to the prince’s mother. The zenana women were usurping Yasaman’s quarters.

“Share the bath for now, my lady,” he counseled her. “I will see you have it to yourself whenever you want it. Perhaps the prince will not need a zenana in future.”

Yasaman agreed with his wisdom, for she trusted the eunuch.

Akbar and his court departed Kashmir for Lahore and then Agra. For the first time in her life Yasaman remained behind. As the autumn deepened, she felt her energy rising along with a pure joy of living. She had never been so happy in her life. She loved her mountain kingdom, and she was, she realized, beginning to care for Jamal Khan. The more they were together, the more she got to know him and the better she liked him. He was not indolent like so many of the southerners she knew. He had no taste for intrigue or politics. He was a young man with an honest, straightforward outlook on life. As Akbar’s unofficial governor, he worked hard at the rather dull business of the administration of the Mughal government in Kashmir. Jamal Khan was not a man to toil constantly, however. He liked to hunt, and he had taken Yasaman with him on several occasions. He was quite astounded by her facility with weapons, even proud of her talent.

As the days passed, he became more enchanted by the girl herself. He had not once visited his zenana since his marriage. It had become quite a sore point with Samira, who, unaware of the true relationship between Jamal and Yasaman, was convinced their neglect was Yasaman’s fault. This was something
she could not fathom. The princess was an untutored child. She, Samira, was a skilled courtesan. So were her companions.

Adali watched the situation until it had almost come to the boiling point. The zenana women were unhappy in their enforced virtue. The prince was growing restless with his noble chastity. As for Yasaman, she was irritable, beset by a longing she didn’t understand, and euphoric and despondent by turns. She flung herself into seeing that her household ran perfectly. Adali decided that the time was ripe for the plan of action he had formulated in his wily mind the morning after the marriage had taken place, when he had learned from Rohana and Toramalli of their mistress’s desire to know her husband better before they were intimate.

The prince hunted alone one chilly autumn day. He came home ill-humored, for he had found no game at all and had been caught several miles from home in a cold rainstorm.

“My lord,” Adali petitioned him in dulcet tones, “you need the company of your zenana women tonight. I know you have kept from them since your marriage, but sometimes a variety of delights is just what a man needs after a disappointing day.”

Jamal Khan thought on Adali’s words. His pent-up energy was almost burning him from the inside out. There he was with a zenana of luscious treats,
and he had not had a woman in two months!
He had been patient. He was willing to remain patient, but where was it written that a man must be faithful to but a single woman? He didn’t know any who were. His own father had a houseful of women. His father-in-law had forty wives, not to mention a zenana large enough to populate a small city.

The words were from his mouth before he could think another thought. “Tell the zenana women that I will join them this evening, Adali,” he told his new high steward.

“Very good, my lord prince,” Adali murmured deferentially. “Shall I tell the princess you will have your evening meal alone?”

Logic did no good. Jamal Khan felt guilty. The last thing he wanted to do was have a meal with his trusting young wife while contemplating an evening of lustful pleasures with his zenana. “Yes,” he said. “Tell the princess my mood is foul and I would not inflict myself upon her. Tell her I will see her in the morning.”

“Yes, my lord,” Adali said, hiding his own delight. Bowing, he hurried off.

Disappointed, Yasaman nonetheless accepted the message.
Men were as prone to moodiness as women, Mama Begum had often said. Rohana and Toramalli, alert to their mistress’s state of dejection, tried to cheer her with her favorite chicken curry and lychee nuts in a honey syrup. Yasaman picked at her food and decided she was not interested in playing a game of chess with Rohana. She would retire early for lack of anything better to do.

She was awakened by the sound of soft music and laughter coming from the zenana. At first she was not even certain of what she heard. In her two months as Jamal Khan’s wife, there had never been any unseemly noise from the other side of the wall. Curious, Yasaman arose and slipped out onto the terrace that she shared with the zenana. Standing behind a carved marble screen, she peered into the room, for the draperies were not drawn. Layla and Nilak were seated upon a divan lightly strumming upon stringed instruments. Yasaman cast her eyes about for the other women and gasped softly in shock, for Jamal Khan was with them.

They were all naked, she realized, and her husband stood quite still as Samira knelt before him, her hand firmly grasping his lingham as she suckled upon it. The golden-skinned woman’s thighs were parted, allowing the Greek woman, Thyra, to he with her head between them. Lalita lay atop Thyra, her head between the fair woman’s legs, her hands outstretched to balance herself. For a moment the significance of the erotic tableau did not register on Yasaman, and then she gasped again.

Jamal Khan’s fingers kneaded Samira’s head strongly. His eyes were half closed, and deep pleasure was very evident upon his face. Yasaman stood very quietly, not even feeling the icy marble beneath her bare feet or the light chilly wind that had begun to blow off the lake. She was fascinated by what she was seeing.
It was a living Pillow Book
.